> On Mar 21, 2016, at 1:36 PM, Eduardo Corte-Real A. Corte-Real <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> For instance: when you say “ urban project” and you say “urban design” what do you mean in each case?
> Or when you say a “book project” or a “book design”? or a “social project” and a “social design”? what are you referring at? Or architectural project and architectural design? Or

A book project is a task for someone. For a book designer, designing the book is the book project. The completed physical/visual form of the book is the book design. For a writer, of course, the book project is creating the verbiage and for an editor, the book project is overseeing the book through to the printing stage.

A social project could also be very different tasks for different people. A social design would be a slightly more slippery definition than a book design but the phrase used with an article (*a* social design), seems to imply a specific plan. (I think the phrase "social design" is more common as a description of an activity than as a completed thing as would be implied by the *a.*) Book design implies fairly tight control over the outcome. Anything called a social design would necessarily have less precise control on the part of the designers.

An urban project could be a different task for different players (and the different tasks wouldn’t have to be different roles in the same sort of overall enterprise.) It might refer to any undertaking located in a city. The phrase "an urban design" isn’t common although it may seem more comfortable a phrase than "a social design." Urban design generally refers to large-scale planning that affects various projects (which generally would themselves be products of design.) An urban designer attempts to shape groups of buildings and even whole cities. Architects generally focus more particularly and expect greater control of the outcome of their domains.

I don’t know if that helps at all.


Gunnar

Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University 
graphic design program

http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA

http://www.gunnarswanson.com
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